David L. Pearson

The Ecotraveller's Wildlife Guide to Peru is another in the Les Beletsky series that covers and illustrates habitats, ecology, and natural history, not just of birds but also plants, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, insects, and other arthropods. A good portion of the book is taken up with birds (60 of the 99 color plates); even so, only about 320 of the country's 1800 species are shown. It's nice to have some of the other life forms included, but only the mammal section can be considered to provide anything more than a small sample. The profusion of life in an environment that goes from the Amazon basin to the peaks of the Andes to the Pacific can only be covered superficially in a book like this. The principle behind these "ecotraveller" volumes is much more successful in encompassing the more limited flora and fauna of northern and temperate climates that the buzzing, blooming confusion of the tropics.… (lisätietoja)